Carrie Underwood Covers Billboard Magazine

4/17/2012 2:15 PM ET

Carrie Underwood is featured on the cover of Billboard magazine this month. The country star also gives an in-depth interview with the magazine about her career, her marriage to NHL star Mike Fisher, and how life has changed since her American Idol days.

Speaking on her career Underwood says: "I never feel like I've pigeon-holed myself into a certain kind of song. I've taken all of my albums into as many different directions as possible, while still keeping them coherent."

Underwood explained that her upcoming album, Blown Away "is just a whole new level of that."

Underwood says she took longer in making her new album:

"It seems like people have an album out every year and they are on a 'perma-tour' is what I call it. They tour permanently, all the time. I think I just made that word up," she says.

"They live on tour and when they aren't on tour, they are making an album," Underwood continued. "To me, if you have no life in between albums, you have nothing to write about . . . I have to live."